David Bolter wrote:
>
>
> Do we need to have an a11y solution for canvas...
yes
> ...or is it a usage problem
> solvable through education and evangelism? I don't know.
>
> cheers,
> David
David,
<soapbox>
With respect: if you are going to produce an element for content authoring
on the web, then accessibility aspects (DOM hooks or whatever) need to be
part of the spec - full stop. Now, this does not mean that you need to
deliver exact functionality to all users - a11y has never even hinted that
this is a requirement - what is needed is *equivalent* functionality so that
alternative user-agents (or a combination of mainstream user-agents and
adaptive technology) delivers to the end user the content's intent.
It might take longer, or be less elegant (@longdesc is a wonderful
poster-child for this, which many within the working group still don't
grok), but it is *inclusive*... it doesn't leave some users standing outside
the door with a pat on the head and a "...sorry, we need to do more
education and evangelism to make people understand this". What exactly do
you think the web accessibility community has been doing for the past
decade? (That these types of discussions still need to be had within the
greater 'experts community' 10 years after the launch of W3C's WAI simply
shows that e & e only goes so far).
</soapbox>
So again, to the first question - yes.
JF